Money Magazine Ranks Babson No. 1 College

WELLESLEY, Mass., July 28, 2014 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Money magazine has named Babson the No. 1 college in America on its new list of Best Colleges, "a new approach to ranking colleges that uses unique measures of educational quality, affordability, and career outcomes to help families find the right school at the right price."

According to Money, "Consider our overall winner, Babson College, in suburban Boston. Quality of education? Check. Babson specializes in business and entrepreneurship but also gives students a well-rounded education in liberal arts and sciences and lots of opportunity for hands-on project-based learning. Big financial payoff? Check again. Babson grads go on to earn hefty salaries, and the list of ventures they've started is impressive, including Home Depot and Zumba Fitness."

Money continues: "The focus on business is the big draw—and provides a big payoff. Students get hands-on experience from the start, launching a business as part of a fre​shmen team (profits go to charity) and, in later years, through continuing interaction with local companies and via internships. The result of all that real-world learning: Babson alums report earning an average of nearly $60,000 a year within five years of graduation—about $13,000 more than the average for recent grads of comparable schools. Ninety percent graduate within six years, eight points better than similar colleges."

Babson topped Money's ranking of 665 schools nationally.

Money's Top 10 Colleges

1.     Babson College
2.     Webb Institute
3.     Massachusetts Institute of Technology
4.     Princeton University
5.     Stanford University
6.     Harvard University
7.     Harvey Mudd College
8.     Cooper Union
9.     Brigham Young University
10.  California Institute of Technology

"Money magazine's recognition of Babson as the No. 1 college further validates our collaborative effort to create a unique learning and living environment for our students that delivers an incredible return on investment over a lifetime," said President Kerry Healey. "This ranking values our academic excellence while recognizing the success of Babson students as measured by graduation rates, employment rates, salary earned, and ROI as they create great economic and social value everywhere."

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Additional Ranking Information from Money
"Nine months in the making, Money's Best Colleges ranks 665 schools on 17 measures, based on the most recent research about what really matters in higher education. Among its distinctive analyses: The list provides a more realistic way to price colleges, taking into account the complete cost of a degree rather than a single year. It is also the only ranking to evaluate which schools add the most value given the academic and economic background of the students who attend, and to level the playing field on majors, to show whether graduates of a particular college earn more (or less) than average, whether they got degrees in engineering or English. The result, says Money senior writer Kim Clark, who created the rankings and wrote the accompanying story, 'is a list of colleges – some famous, some surprising – that, according to the best data available, provide real value. College is expensive, but the highly rated colleges on our list are the most likely to do a great job of educating your student and helping to launch him or her into a well-paying job.'"

"To develop the new rankings, Money partnered with Mark Schneider, former commissioner of the Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics and his company College Measures​, which collects and analyzes data to drive improvements in higher ed. Major contributions also came from Payscale, which provided the earnings data. One of the most important findings to come out of the rankings, Schneider notes, is that you don't have to pay a lot to get a high quality education that really helps in the job market. 'The published price of a college doesn't tell you very much about what you'll actually pay or of students' later life success,' he says. 'There is zero correlation with most of our measures.'"

Methodology
According to Money: "To make our initial cut, a college had to have a six-year graduation rate at or above the median in its category (public or private). We then screened out schools with a speculative bond rating from Moody's (indicating financial difficulties) or for which there weren't sufficient data available. That left 665 schools, which we ranked on 17 factors in three equally weighted categories:

• Quality of Education – Factors included the school's six-year graduation rate, student standardized test scores, the student-faculty ratio, and Rate My Professors grades, in addition to the value-added graduation rate, which reflects the difference between a school's actual grad rate and its expected rate, based on the economic and academic background of the student body.
• Affordability – Measures included student and parent borrowing and student-loan default rates (unadjusted and value added), as well as the estimated average net price of a degree, a calculation that takes into account a school's sticker price, total institutional financial aid, tuition inflation, and the average time it takes students to graduate.
• Outcomes – This category includes several measures of early (within five years of graduation) and mid-career earnings (raw data from Payscale.com, plus adjustments for value added and the school's majors), plus career services staffing."

About Babson College
Babson College is the educator, convener, and thought leader for Entrepreneurship of All Kinds™. The College is a dynamic living and learning laboratory, where students, faculty, and staff work together to address the real-world problems of business and society—while at the same time evolving our methods and advancing our programs. We shape the leaders our world needs most: those with strong functional knowledge and the skills and vision to navigate change, accommodate ambiguity, surmount complexity, and motivate teams in a common purpose to create economic and social value. As we have for nearly a half-century, Babson continues to advance Entrepreneurial Thought and Action^® as the most positive force on the planet for generating sustainable economic and social value.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

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